European Railway Challenge
The ERWC marks the highlight of our season. In 2025, we participated for the first time with our own locomotive KARLA and finished in third place!
What is the ERWC about?
Each year as the summer begins, student teams from all across Europe compete with their locomotives in Bad Schussenried, located Upper Swabia, Germany. With more teams joining, the event is growing bigger each year!
The competition week
Getting the locomotives ready
Teams spend the entire week leading up to the competition weekend assembling their locomotive, testing it and fixing bugs. They motivate each other, share tools and tips. There‘s a strong sense of community among the teams at ERWC.
On the weekend it gets serious
Under the watchful eyes of many curious visitors, the teams locomotives face a series of tough challenges. Now it’s time to prove which ideas work and who’s ready to rise to the occasion.
The Challenges
The core functions a locomotive should feature are tested in the following challenges:
Autostop Challenge
This challenge is about machine vision and precise positioning. The locomotive must recognize a sign at the edge of the track autonomously. Whose locomotive then comes to a halt after a specified distance wins.
Ride Comfort Challenge
The ride comfort challenge test the locomotive’s suspension. Acceleration in each direction is measured during the train ride. Whose ride is the most comfortable, wins this challenge.
Energy Storage Challenge
The energy storage challenge is about recovering braking energy through recuperation. To win this challenge, the team must cover the greatest possible distance using the energy recovered during braking.
Traction Challenge
At the traction challenge, it’s key to manage traction and avoid slip. Whose locomotive manages to accelerate from standstill the fastest wins.
Reliability Challenge
Locomotives need to be robust against errors in everyday business. In this challenge, the locomotive must run for at least 1 hour without needing to recharge the battery or encountering any faults.
Maintainability Challenge
How easy is it to maintain the locomotive? Teams have to disassemble and reassemble a wheelset as fast as they could to win this challenge.
To showcase their creativity and engineering skills, teams can compete in numerous optional challenges: automatic coupling, aerodynamic drag, ride-on locomotive, location announcement as well remote data recording and monitoring.
Our participations
Life at ERWC
Imagine beeing at your favorite festival with your favorite people – just swap the live music for bolts and welding. That’s what ERWC feels like.
Set in the beautiful surroundings you pitch your tent at the Loc.KA camp in the middle of a field, right next to the competition site. And when it comes to food: our homemade meals easily beat any canteen dish. Good food, good mood – and the perfect fuel to keep going.